A Woman's Life-Work-Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland Part 13

With these beseeching words, with tearful eyes that brought tears to the eyes of the colonel as well, the colonel said at once:

"I think you ought to comply with Fairbanks's request, and stay over one more trip. You can stop with us and be welcome. If you choose to call on Dr. Field, as Fairbanks has suggested, you can do so; but I reckon it's your duty to see his lawyer."

Dr. Field was a practical abolitionist. Like Dr. Brisbane and James G.

Birney, he emanc.i.p.ated his own slaves, and left Louisville on account of slavery, and made a home in Jeffersonville, on the Indiana side of the river.

As it was now ten minutes, double the time suggested by the jailer while we were on our way to the jail, I turned to the keeper, and told him as my interview was prolonged beyond its limit, I would go; and on taking leave of Calvin he pointed to four men standing a few feet from him, and said, "Do you know those men?"

I looked up and nodded to them a recognition. They were fugitives who had been recaptured by virtue of the fugitive slave law pa.s.sed in 1850, some of whom had made their escape from slavery many years before. One, whose name was Baker, with whom I was well acquainted, had hair straighter and skin fairer than very many of our Anglo-Saxon race.

These four answered to the nod, smiling through their tears. They had enjoyed a taste of freedom, and now were to be hurled back to a dark life of bondage more bitter to them than ever before. But not a word could I utter to them. The slight bow, as I was turning away, was all; and yet that was sufficient to set on fire a world of iniquity in the four officers in front of the iron grates through which we conversed with Calvin Fairbanks. These officers beckoned to the jailer as we were pa.s.sing through to the outer gate, and upon his opening it, he said, "Will you please pa.s.s through the yard into our apartments alone?"

"Certainly," I responded; and turning to me, he remarked, "Those officers beckoned to see me a moment."

I drew my arm from his, that he had so politely tendered in going to and from Calvin. In pa.s.sing through the yard I met their slave man, who said, in a low tone, "Did you see Fairbanks?"

I answered, in a like tone, "I did."

"Glory!" he cried, just loud enough for me to hear.

Near the door I was met by Mary, who said but little above a whisper, "Did you see him?" As I gave a nod, she said, "Good, good!" clapping her hands for joy.

I waited in the parlor for the return of the jailer, as he had said he would go to the river with me. He soon came in, pale and trembling with excitement.

"Mrs. Haviland, those officers are all boiling over with excitement.

They wanted to know if I didn't see how just the sight of you was like an electric shock all over that crowd of slaves." "Didn't you see those four runaways cry at the sight of her?" said one of the officers. I told them my attention was all taken up with your conversation with Fairbanks, and noticed nothing of others.

"They say it is very evident that you are a dangerous person, and deserve to be here in this jail just as much as Fairbanks, and they are for arresting you at once; and I don't know, Mrs. Haviland, that it will be in my power to protect you. There have been threats in the papers every day since you've been here; and Shotwell has had his officers out hunting in every hotel for you; but we have kept it carefully from the public that you were with me, until now these officers are determined to arrest you."

Said I: "Colonel Buckner, should your officers come in this moment I have nothing to fear. The G.o.d of Daniel is here at this hour. Should I be arrested, you wouldn't keep me in your jail three days. I have no more fear than if I were in my own room in Cincinnati."

His trembling voice became quiet; and more calmly he said:

"Well, it is a glorious thing to feel like you do; but I reckon you'd better go over the river to Dr. Field's, and when Mr. Thruston comes into the city I'll send him over to see you. I advise you not to set foot on the Kentucky sh.o.r.e again, as I know it will not be safe. There is this morning a great excitement jail over town about you. So one of the officers told me. But I'll go to the river with you right soon."

We started for the door, when he halted: "I don't think I had better go with you now, as these officers may come out and make trouble, and I reckon you'd be safer alone."

"Very well, I have no hesitancy whatever in going alone;" and I bode him "good-bye."

As I was opening the door he reached his hand to return the "Good-bye--G.o.d bless you!" and I left the jail and jailer.

I pa.s.sed a large hotel, with perhaps fifteen or twenty men standing on the sidewalk in front. All seemed in a perfect buzz of excitement,--When I saw this company of men, the first thought was to pa.s.s over on the other side. "But I will neither turn to the right nor the left, but pa.s.s through their midst," was an impression that I followed; and so busily engaged were they in their excited conversation that they hardly looked to see the little pa.s.ser-by, the subject of their thoughts and words. Said one:

"Great excitement in town to-day."

"Yes, sir; you can see a group of men at every street corner."

I smiled to myself, as I thought, "Little do you think this is the little old woman you are troubling yourselves over."

I soon was in Jeffersonville inquiring for Dr. Field's residence, and was shown the house across the street, and upon its front porch stood a little group--the doctor and family, with two ministers--watching me; and as I opened the gate and inquired if this was Dr. Field's residence:

"Yes, I am the Jason," said the doctor. "We're been looking for you, Mrs. Haviland, every day since you've been in Louisville."

This was an unexpected salutation, and I felt at home again as I clasped their warm hands of friendship.

"How is it that you have knowledge of me?"

"Just walk in, and I'll show you the papers; haven't you seen them?"

I told him I had not, and knew nothing of it until just as I was leaving; the jailer told me there had been threats in the daily papers to arrest me. When I read these little scurrilous articles, calculated to inflame an already inflamed public, I wondered, as well as the doctor, that they had not found my whereabouts and made trouble. I hoped my Cincinnati friends had not seen this, as I had written them the reason of my delay, and sent the letter by the same boat that brought me to Louisville. I enjoyed sweet rest with these Christian friends, and attended with them their afternoon meeting. The minister who preached was as earnest an abolitionist as the doctor, and brother Proctor preached as radical an abolition sermon as I ever listened to; it seemed like an oasis in a desert.

The day following I sent a note to Lawyer Thruston's office, and received in reply the statement that his illness had prevented his leaving his room during two weeks past, and urged me to come and see him without delay, and he would stand between me and all harm. The doctor said, as he was a lawyer of influence in their city, he advised me to go; and as it was snowing a little, he gave me an umbrella, with which I might screen myself while pa.s.sing the jail, as well as be sheltered from the snow. I found the lawyer very affable in his manners, and he said they would do the best they could for Fairbanks, and we might pay what we could. I returned without difficulty to our "Jason."

I wrote a little article under the caption of "Correction," and sent it to both the _Commercial_ and Louisville _Courier_. It was inserted, with the following editorial note:

"Notwithstanding the pretended laudability of her errand to our city, we are still satisfied it was out of no good motive, as birds of a feather will flock together."

Most a.s.suredly I was thankful to see the return of "Ben Franklin, No.

2," which took me from that nest of unclean birds to those of more congenial and harmless habits. My anxious friends in Cincinnati had not received either of any letters, and had read only these threatening cards in the Cincinnati _Commercial_, copied from Louisville dailies, that caused great anxiety. I sent a letter by both trips that this boat made during the week I was in Louisville, and Colonel Buckner took both and said he would sec them delivered at the boat.

While on the boat a gentleman and his wife among the pa.s.sengers were returning to their Eastern home, with whom I formed a pleasant acquaintance. Among other topics of discussion was the value of hygiene and hydropathy, in which a Louisville physician joined, narrating his observations of the system during a practice of fifteen years in Louisville. As he seemed to be an intelligent and social gentleman, we all seemed to enjoy our new acquaintances. I remarked to him that there seemed to exist quite an excitement in his city during the week past, over an old lady who took a few articles of under-clothes and a quilt or two to Fairbanks.

"O, yes; were you in the city?"

"I was, and was surprised at the excitement produced by her presence."

"Well, I suppose Shotwell did make a great stir over his loss of a house-servant. I understand be spent three hundred dollars in his effort to find that woman, as he thought she knew where his slave was.

I have forgotten her name."

"Mrs. Haviland, from Cincinnati, was the one threatened in your dailies," I replied.

"Ob, yes, that was the name. I heard you say you are going to Cincinnati; do you know any thing of that lady?"

"I do; I have been acquainted with her from childhood."

"You have! What sort of a lady is she?"

"Well, if you should see her, you wouldn't think it worth while to raise all this breeze over her, or any thing she could do. She is a little, insignificant looking woman, anyhow; and yet I think she is conscientious in what she does."

"There wouldn't have been such a stir but for Mr. Shotwell, who felt himself wronged in the loss of his house servant;"

"But he is considered one of your most influential citizens, I am told."

"Yes, madam; I reckon we'll have to excuse him, for he is quite nervous and angry over Fairbanks."

After quite a lengthy conversation on this subject, my new lady friend, to whom I had related a portion of my Louisville experience, was waiting for an opportunity to put a joke on the Louisville doctor, and called me by name. At this the astonished doctor said:

"I reckon this is not Mrs. Haviland, is it?"